creature from the black lagoon || feast 3v4vmutt

[[nyte]]

Water glazed over her scales as she slumbered on the floor of the lake. The school of fish that nibbled off the algae settling on her scales circled around her, taking advantage of their mutual relationship before swimming off for the day. She was almost always in a state of hibernation, and today would be no different. On the floor of the lake, the sun’s rays did not penetrate very far, but the water was warmer with the summer heat—and the Gamemakers’ manipulation.

But she was made for one purpose and all it would take was one sudden jolt to disturb her rest. As the moon shone brightly, she could feel the waves begin to move in a different fashion. Even in her slumber, she could sense a change in the weather—one so strong that it sent a tingle down her long spine. She would soon awaken and when she did, she would not be pleased.

Unlike all of the other critters in the arena, she was fueled by attack. She did not discern between friend and foe; only those who provided mutual benefit for survival. So when the water began to churn from the system on the surface, she would slowly rise from her slumber and propel herself upward. As her head broke the surface of the lake, the wind slapped more water into her face and from the depths of her belly, she released a loud roar.

There were small creatures on the lake and she was hungry. With all her rage, she swung at the small creatures: first with one arm, her claws fully extended; then with the other arm, a heavy piece of vine caught between two of her claws.


[The Thing attacks ariel (10f) ; claw (sword)]
ZwU_XEJMNZsword
[miss ; 0.0]


[The Thing attacks love (2m) ; vine (whip)]
whip
[miss ; 0.0]

sword·whip

[gamemaker sloane ♕ kaяi ♕]

waverly st. amor

It was a restless night.

The first night in four days where sleep seemed to evade her.

The boys didn't even ask her to keep watch last night. All three of them understood that if any of them were going to survive the next day Waverly had to be at her best. Well, the best that someone can be when Death was just knocking on her door not hours before.

Julian managed to stitch up most of her wounds like he promised he would, but no amount of bandages or natural remedies was able to stop pain that radiated throughout her body. The left side of her head was awkwardly wrapped in bandages to cover the hole where her ear once was. No matter how hard he tried it still throbbed and the rest of her body ached with each breath she took.

She did her best to settle down for the night, but every time she tried to get comfortable her body screamed at her to find a new position. It was an endless game of tossing and turning, and mere minutes of restless sleep that were plagued with nightmares. At first it was just her father and his body going limp beneath her hands. Then Emie falling to the ground. Then Chad. Then her fire poker impaling the boy from Twelve straight through the heart. Then Julian sending another fire poker through the neck of the boy from Eleven. All of them on repeat.

Over and over again.

It didn't take much to wake her from her light sleep. A little bit of the harsh winds whipping through the air roused her. Waverly stretched as much as her stiff body would allow her before getting up to pack her bag. Her body screamed in protest, but she forced herself to smile and waved off Love as he tried to help her. Her eyes were tired and threatened to close for good.

But she was used to not sleeping.

And she was used to acting like everything was alright.

Somehow even in her state she managed to make it several feet ahead of the other two. She couldn't help but laugh as she looked back at the other lagging behind.

"Come on slowpokes. You're not really going to let a girl beat you, are you?"

"I can’t tell if the GM’s brought back the zombies or if you’re just feeling better,” rang out Love's voice. Waverly had just opened her mouth to answer when she heard it, the slight movement of the undergrowth near the other end of the trail. She moved her finger up to her lips to shush the boys and her free hand grabbed one of her knives. Seconds later a group of tributes pushed out from the trees and she couldn't help but sigh.

"I'd say good to see you, but we all know how this is going to end," her hand shook as she raised her knife. She couldn't tell if it was from exhaustion or fear.

But somehow she still managed to let it fly.

( waverly attacks blade ; throwing knives )
_wswqbhEhzthrowing knife
( knife deep in forearm - 8.0 )

throwing knife

[napoleon, d2m ₊⊹ 🐁 ɢʀɪғғɪɴ.]

julian le roux

There is happiness
Past the blood and bruise
Past the curses and cries
Beyond the terror in the nightfall

Julian’s fingers shook as they stitched the wound.

He shouldn't be doing it, not when everything in him shuddered quietly, but when he looked at the bloody spot where Waverly's ear had once been, he knew stitching it was necessary. The trembling, on the other hand, showed no signs of end. His heart quivered like a runner’s after this terrible rush of what he had done today. 

Taking a life remade a person. It should be a known fact, and it should have not surprised him, but the unspoken truth was that careers such as himself had only ever been taught how to commit the act, not how to survive the dreadful aftermath. He learnt now that the battle was not over when a body fell, nor did it end it when someone won. The lives he took or helped in taking – they followed him around like ragged shadows prowling his heels.

And indeed, Six O’Malley’s shade followed him around incessantly. Not only that, but Emerson’s death became a novelty in the garish light of this as Julian pondered hers, Six’s, and all the other faces’ he’d seen amongst the stars over the past few days. He understood, deep down, that he had no desire to be one of those faces. It was what bound altogether as tributes in a way, their fear of the reaper’s shadow, and the unspoken promise to never fall under it.

Trying to outrun death changed a person. No matter how hard he tried, he was no longer the boy who once bought a vintage artwork for Paris Vanburen, and no longer the explorer who once sneaked through the Peacekeepers barracks with his cousin in tow. He wasn’t the Julian who met Love in that pool, nor was the Julian who taught Avriel how to throw knives. He was the contrast of everything he had once been – gentle, hopeful – and the loss of all that was another death for which he had scant time to grieve.

Julian had never felt so alone before, but he was far from it in truth. There was still Love, broken and fractured yet a monster all the same, and there was still Waverly, iron-skinned and ruthless and of course a monster all the same, and there was the part of him that had adapted to the others, a part of him that had sheltered the darkness and become a monster itself.

The monsters were still there, but the fear was gone.

It was dreadful to find that he was impossibly strong and maybe selfish, and that his kindness wasn’t enough to save him from the savage, stubborn knot of self-love he carried in his chest. Because if there was one thing that hadn’t changed, it was Julian’s desire to live. Julian wanted to live keenly. Julian wanted to live brokenly. Against all odds and turns, he wanted that damned crown and use it to make the world a better place, or burn it all down if that proved impossible.

At the end of the day, at least that choice would be his.

The wound was dressed by a few plants he’d found scattered around, and by the time they were finished, the storm had grown fiercer. Cold, weary, and aching in every way, his footsteps were clockwork when he entered Love’s tent and fell wordlessly into the empty space next to him.

“I’m not the only monster here,” Love said.

“I know,” Julian answered.

“I’m sorry,” Love said.

“I know,” Julian answered.

Come morning and hell seemed to have descended upon them, as funnels of wind reached down to pluck trees out of the soil, from root to stem, and the rain – the angry, shrieking rain that howled as they bolted through trees, a river of leaves rushing past Julian. “Ahead!” he shouted to the others, shielding his eyes from the rain. “The lake! We’ll be safer at the lake!”

And his words had never been so wrong. Julian stopped in his tracks when he saw it: a huge, hulking mass of flesh that dripped with water, and let out a terrible roar. He caught the arc of its arm – first against the rain-blurred shape of a person he hadn’t noticed before – and then –

“Love!”

Julian tackled the other down to the ground as the vine whooshed past their heads. He hadn’t even thought about it, acting on instincts. Another girl drew closer and he lashed out immediately like an animal. He needed Love alive. If Love was dead then it meant that Julian would be the only monster alive here, and he couldn’t stomach that thought.

But it also begged the question: What if he was awful? What if he was too hungry, too ruthless, and too terrible to love?

“What if I am terrible?” he asked Love, his first real words to him since morning, as they rose back to their feet.

“What then?”

- Julian attacks Blade with Firepoker (Spear) -

T8_nPAdZUYspear

3023 -- Shallow Cut on Right Thigh -- 3.5 damage (Spear)

Haunted by the look in my eyes
That would've loved you for a lifetime
Leave it all behind
And there is happiness


Lyrics: Happiness, Taylor Swift

spear

[✨ zozo.]

🗡

When the anthem plays you squeeze your eyes shut so tightly you think you might go blind. You think you ought to. It might make up for what you did, convincing yourself that if you paid for your sins you might feel anything less than utterly awful.

When you open your eyes you can see false stars and decide to simply live with what you did.

There's no sleep after taking someone elses life. Just shock, a gnawing that might be guilt, or it might just be the emptiness in your stomach. You refused to eat last night, refused to speak, trawling behind Areto and Avriel and Ariel as you wiped the sick from your chin. It felt awful, wasteful, traces of bile in-between your teeth as you lie awake. You're unclear on how you feel now, but you know you don't feel right. Your body is a stranger, even with a near-dead hand strapped up the best you and your allies could manage. This is the body of a girl who kills. This is the body of a girl who chose to fight. Who turned into steel, only realising she could not turn back into a blade of grass after she became permanent.

You look at yourself in the reflection of your knife, a girl you think you recognise stares back. Somewhere buried in the blade are remnants of who you once were. Curls spilling out of a hair-tie. A birthmark gently staining the skin underneath your left eye. A friendship bracelet, muddied and stained red, hanging limply from a wrist you can barely feel.

Am I a bad person?

Am I a bad person?

Am I a bad person?

Am I a bad person?

Am I a bad person?

Am I a bad person?

Am I a bad person?

Am I a bad person?

Am I a bad person?

You might not have been then, but you certainly are now.

And you're kind of okay with that.

And it makes you feel sick.

---

When you stumble across the careers, your heart drops. Mutts are one thing, a rag-tag bunch of children another, but careers know how to kill. To you it was pure instinct, a panicked, adrenaline-fueled reaction. To them it is second nature. Instinct trained. Children who decided they were bad people a long time ago and never apologised for it since.

You can be that girl now. All steel, all bad. Blade of yesterday would have looked at Areto with wide eyes and begged for help. Blade today knows how this goes.

So she sheds herself, no longer afraid of how this Blade makes you feel. There's a screech, two muttations barreling into view - you don't even flinch. When they launch at your friends you do not cower - instead, you react like a mirror. Go for the girl with shaking hands and the 8 stamped on her bloodstained shirt who's knives fly into your dead hand.

Would she make you a good person, choosing to take her life over your own? You step forward with Avriel, one in the same - but this time you're different, and you wonder if he hates you for it or pities you. If you carve her up, will you find who you once were buried underneath her skin?

No time to second-guess your questions, the battle has begun. So you raise your sword and slice with your one good hand, looking for something long-forgotten in the body of a stranger.

blade attacks waverly, sword
XjFavGHrEssword
Deep Gash on Left Calf -- 8.0 damage + 1 blades

sword

[gamemaker kelsier]

a v r i e l .

"Whatever mess you're in
The demons you've been fighting
Know that your quest is only just beginning"

Areto is in ruins when she returns, vines of blood trickling down her skin, cracks in her marble and a brow furrowed in pain. She stands tall anyway, looking for wounds on the other two and looking Avriel up and down quickly too when she thinks he's not looking.

But out of the corner of his eye, he sees the way she wilts when she thinks no one is looking at her.

"Fuckin' careers," he mutters as he finishes hammering in one last peg. He can't lie and say that he doesn't get it though. It's terrible enough to be weak let alone in front of anyone else. As someone whose lived their life against the wall at the back of the crowd, it's a nightmare to be seen like that.

To be seen at all, actually.

He pushes the peg in the rest of the way with his foot and wipes his hands off on his shorts before heading over to where Areto is standing guard. There's a roll of bandages in his pocket and some left over thread from earlier. It's slow getting over to her still but the wounds in his legs won't heal before his death anyway. Aggravating them is fine.

"Hey you, sit," he commands as he approaches, "And don't argue for once, alright?"

He owes her this, she's got to see that at least. He's not stupid, even half out of it, Avriel knew who was taking care of him a couple nights ago. Areto can pretend not to care about him, and maybe she doesn't, maybe she just didn't want to be down an able body too early in the games, whatever, Avriel can't help but care for her.

Like with Avriel and Blade, he always will.

Avriel starts by cleaning her wounds with the water from his canteen as best as he can. Getting the dirt out is the only thing he can do, there's nothing to sanitize with here. It looks worse than he thought and he can't help but pause when he sees the gash on her stomach.

"I care if you're in pain," he says after a moment, "So next time just fucking say something."

When night hits, Avriel sleeps through the anthem and takes second watch propped up against a tree. Blade is asleep beside him and when she rolls over, she's half on his leg. He doesn't move, he doesn't want to wake her up. The night drags on in silence and Avriel is left to his thoughts. There are so many of those, aching things, memories stitching themselves back together from the things that he's forgotten.

He'd forgotten about how happy he used to be before the ache set in, how he used to build forts with Duke and spend afternoons listening to him read stories beneath the blankets. Billie had been his best friend for so long that this year, he took that for granted. He doesn't even know what she's been doing since their parents were gone.

He misses them, so much, and it should hurt bad but it's a nice sort of ache, a regretful feeling. After months of feeling almost nothing at all, it's so good. He's thawing out a little.

The sun rises here still, golden rays pushing through the tree-lined path gently and Avriel watches in silence. He didn't know before this that he the idea of never seeing another sunrise could hurt too. He used to wish for time to stop, to hold everything in place so it'd stop falling apart all around him, but now he sees what a pity that would be and that's a pity in itself.

He looks down at Blade, still asleep, and he thinks about shaking her awake so that she doesn't miss it. He's always been good at watching, always noticed tiny pretty things but he's never felt like sharing them with anybody before now.

He doesn't do it, he doesn't wake her because it wouldn't be fair to pull her out of sleep so early. Instead, Avriel just feels the weight of her on his leg and keeps the moment for himself.

For a split second, his life is perfect.

Then the sun finishes rising and he's shaking her shoulder gently to wake her.

They walk for what must be only an hour or two before they come out at the lake again. It feels strange to be back here, strange to look at those pristine waters and not feel the same way that he did then. If anything, he should be feeling more hopeless now but there's only this quiet settled feeling in the pit of his stomach.

Sort of feels like acceptance.

Or maybe that's the prickling on the back of his neck, the feeling of being watched, of being seen, of the lake surface suddenly rippling, of the first long, clawed arm rising out of the depths, high above their heads and coming down fast towards them.

The knife embedding itself in Blade's arm.

Avriel turns away from the sea creature to see that girl from the district below his, Waverly, arm still raised from the release of the knife.

Blade and him don't need to speak anymore, they don't even need to make eye contact, as he steps forward so does she. They move together, flowing like two people who have known each other for years instead of mere days. He's no longer terrified of losing her because he knows that he can't.

She might lose him, but he won't lose her, he won't let it happen.

"I've got you," he murmurs, and he pulls the knife out of Blade's arm.

"Lose something, Eight?" he asks before sending the knife back from whence it came.

[avriel attacks waverly with throwing knife]
euNUPRH6C4throwing knife
Shallow Cut on Bicep -- 3.5 damage

throwing knife

[pogue]

love bellisario

He'd wandered the woods and been met only with the same ghosts that he'd tried so desperately to avoid, spirits of the dead and the living stalking the trees and speaking only in vengeful tongues. And hell, he'd be nothing but delusional to place himself on a pedestal above his fellow tributes, to stare down on them like a prideful king in pity and disgust. He'd wandered into the woods all the same, just as them, and if he had to reckon a guess he'd say that they were all stuck with their own hauntings.

He thinks of the red around Ariel's eyes, the way her words stammered out from unsure breaths. He thinks of Areto, wrapping shaking fingers around metal and demanding answers from him that he could never give her. He thinks of Mauve, hidden behind a scowl and raw fury how her eyes still danced with fear. 

Finally, he thinks of himself, of the cracked veins and shards waiting to shatter that are spreading fast across his diamond form.

There's no life in this arena, only the spirits and those stuck waiting to join them.

The silence burns when he finally makes his way back to the camp, letting his axe fall from his grasp into the mud below as he comes to a rest on the nearest stump. Waverly collapsed shortly after they got away from their fight, and they'd stood over her with needles and bandages and everything in between until the waves of red had slightly subsided, until her breathing evened and flattend out, until he finally collapsed against the nearest stump and waited for a cannon to ring out. It never came, and his heart wrestles with gratitude and selfish disappointment.

Julian won't speak to him, doesn't speak to him as he makes his way in from the tree line and checks over Waverly's sleeping form, making his way back towards the camp. He waits in awkward silence as Julian moves around him, cloaked in silence and avoiding his stare and Love hates it, hates the way it feels like fire running up and down his veins and butterflies bubbling up from the pit of his stomach.

He frowns, and he realizes that he hates that he hates it. He shouldn't.

Julian does nothing but pull his hand away when Love tries to thread their fingers into each other, wandering off towards the tree line and Love furrows his brows before sitting alone in the silence Julian leaves behind.

It isn't long before that which he'd been running from slip back to the front of his mind. By the time Julian collapses in quiet abandon next to him he is drowning in the thoughts, lip quivers and tears blinked back only hidden by the darkness of the night.

"I'm not the only monster here." He says quietly after a silence that feels like an eternity, and he doesn't know if it's to dig the knife deeper into Julian's stomach or some joker's way of lightening the mood that hangs heavy between them. "I know." Julian responds with half a heart and all parts venom, his form curled away from him and Love's heart sinks just a little bit deeper into the waters, his eyes focusing on the shadowy form of a boy he didn't truly know laying next to him. His thumb draws circles into the flesh of Julian's lower back, methodical and consistent. 

"I'm sorry." The words feel foreign on his tongue.

He means it. He doesn't.

"I know." Julian says again and the conversation collapses in on itself, silence left heavy in its wake. Love sighs, defeated and tired and laced with selfish regret before his eyes float up to the night sky above, the anthem breathing its first breaths and the faces of the dead and the damned staring back at him. Julian is asleep by the time the trumpets cough out one final note, or maybe he's just pretending, but Love wraps his arm around him and feels flesh press to flesh, heartbeat to heartbeat. 

"At least we're monsters together." He says quietly, unknowing if the words even reach his counterpart.

The ghosts don't come for him that night.

An arena roars with anger when his eyes finally snap open, wind whipping its claws through the arena and within seconds he is on his feet next to Julian, stumbling off balance as a particularly strong gust slams into him. His eyes travel first to Waverly as she struggles to rise and then to the sky,  his stomach twirling at the way it grows a sickly shade of yellow. Finally he rests on Julian, nodding along as the boy yells for them to head to the lake. "Let's hope you're right..." He warns, snatching his bag in blood-stained fingers and sprinting alongside the two of them.

By the time they reach the crashing waters of the lake Waverly is somehow steps ahead of them, running on hollow limbs that had been doing nothing but folding in on themselves less than a day prior. She taunts them, and in between pants of shaking breaths he responds with a playful jab, his gaze taking in the numerous cuts that still seep red on her skin. "I can't tell if the GM's brought back the zombies, or if you're just feeling better." He says, and there's almost a grin that slips onto his face before he watches the treeline rustle and shake and four forms slip out from the brush.

He sees the dying before he sees the damned.

Areto, Ariel, Avriel, Blade. His stomach sinks deep into the waters and his heart feels like it is going to crack and shatter as the memories of his conversations with Areto and Ariel from the day prior, of the tapes he'd sent, of the friendships he'd accidentally formed, of the hollow understanding he'd shared with a Career born of the ocean. "Of course it's you-" He begins to say, but he hears his name slip out from between Julian's lips and before he can react his body hits the ground with a painful thud, his counterpart's form landing heavy on top of him. Love nearly scowls in instinct and disgust, getting ready to push Julian off of him before he sees a vine whipe past him and towards where he used to be standing. A breath catches in his throat as his gaze shifts towards the lake, seeing the beastly sack of flesh and fury crawling from the waves.

His jaw hangs open for a moment as he stumbles to his feet, gaze trained on the massive mutt and hand instinctively wrapping around the spear Waverly had given him. It's only when Julian's words reach him that he finally snaps out of it, looking towards his fellow Career with a stone cold stare.

It turns to sympathy at the question Julian proposes, an understanding nod and a small smirk dancing onto his face. 

"Better to be together and terrible than alone and dead." He says, voice still unsure.

"Right?" He asks him, begging for an answer.

It comes in the form of a knife embedded in flesh and Waverly's screams. Love catches a breath in his throat, anger replacing the sympathy that had slipped into his expression as he looks towards Jules. "Protect Waverly. I'll deal with.. whatever that is." He states, curling his hands around the weapon before looking back at their enemies, friends, opponents, the fellow damned.

"I'm sorry, that it turned out to be like this." He says quietly to Areto, to Ariel, before turning to sprint towards the mutt.

He means it. He doesn't.

[ Love attacks the Thing ; spear ]

ZNd1TY3kUMspear

[ Stabbed in thigh -- 8.5, +1 strength ]

spear

[tick 12a / calla]

A R E T O

► ► ►

She wakes up feeling no better.

Her shoulders hurt from tossing and turning, her head aches from the sound of the storm. She sits up when the wind calms and feels the wound in her stomach bleed through the bandages. Areto steadies her lungs and glances over at Avriel, running her fingers over his stitch-work.

The air is still humid from the rain, and his hair sticks to his forehead because of it. They had left the tent flap open during the night and Areto watches Avriel through the opening. Her arms feel sluggish with exhaustion, her whole body is weighed down by it, and the one thing in the world she doesn't want to do is get up. She takes the time instead, lying there with her head pillowed by her bicep, and watches the morning light slant across Avriel's face.

If she squints the right way, she can pretend she's lying at home, and the sweat sticking to her is just the sea breeze. The canvas above her is a thatched roof and the condensation that drips from the fabric is just a remnant of the rain, Avriel is just another lost soul who sailed too far out. She can't shake the feeling of Aspen's spear, and she can't forget Love's words, but she can focus on the way that Avriel had treated her gently, without pity or denouncement or judgement.

It lulls her into a strange sense of comfort, contentment instead of vulnerability, but she only lets herself wallow in it for a precious few seconds. It doesn't take long for the sun to finish rising and turn the tent into a sauna, so Areto pulls her hair back and steps outside and pretends like she never saw him at all.

The wind picks up as they get ready to leave, and the little cluster of buildings on the horizon only looks promising until the sky starts to darken. The clouds thicken, and when they join together and form a hand reaching for the ground, Areto looks back in horror. She's seen storm clouds throw all sorts of things from the sky - water and ice and great spikes of light - but she's never seen anything like this.

A single finger scrapes against the soil of the arena and she watches as it uproots a tree and sends it flying.

Harpyiai, Areto thinks, and she swears she feels the brush of feathers against her cheek. 

Her mother had told her stories of the Harpies to keep her away from the water when the wind made it dangerous.

"Keep your bearings, Areto," Deianeira would say, "The Harpies like to fly away with little children who think they can master the sea on their own. They ride the gusts with their great wings and could move entire islands if they wished to."

And so Areto feels very small now, looking at the clouds as they descend.

She feels like a child.

They run to the lake because there's nowhere else to go, following each other like the rabbit follows the hare. They barely even make it before they're trapped.

The winds rear up behind them, and the lake starts to froth in front of them. The water ripples in a way that seems unnatural, starting in the very middle and drifting out to shore. A webbed hand raises from the waves, with claws that reflect the light and drip with the dark water. Areto takes a step back, then stops when she hears a voice.

She sees the monster and thinks of Aithiopios. She sees Love and thinks of Charybdis.

Her fists clench around her weapon.

The stories of her past and the tales of her present collide in one ugly, bloody mess, and she's left standing shock-still. Then, as suddenly as it all comes down, she's filled with a strange sense of urgency. She feels raw and terrible and the ringing in her ears gets louder. Megáli Gáta sits in the curve of her spine, stars like pinpricks against her skin, and the roar of the monster shakes the constellation loose.

Camaraderie suits her well, no matter how much of her self is steeped in honour and pride and heroics.

"Stay with the others!" She calls to Ariel, hand on her shoulder, then she turns and takes off.

She runs after Love with her spear raised, propelling it at the last second, not into him, but into the thing reaching out of the lake.

"Apologize later." She snaps at Love over the wind "Shut up and help me kill this thing."

areto attacks the thing ; spear
fDHuB6Y05jspear
Stabbed in Stomach -- 9.5 damage + 1

spear

[Python]

a r i e l .

"freedom, oh freedom
like a hearbeast
can drive you mad"

A ghost in the sky confirmed her guilt, plucking any semblance of joy from her heart. In Ten, she had been known to smile through the thick and the thin. She was the sunshine casting her rays across the land; after all, there was a reason her parents always forgave her for the mischief. It was all in good spirit. She was never one to have malicious intentions, and she still didn't claim them even as she had charged at Nora with her spear. Hurting people was never the first idea to cross her mind. Doing what had to be done, and messing up badly, was what happened.

At least, that's what she told herself. Making excuses and accepting reality all in the same breath.

When the anthem faded, she rested the narrow bag across her eyes. The grass bed beneath her was wet, as were the clothes sticking to her skin. She was numb to the feeling. The others had tended to their wounds and laid down to rest, leaving Ariel to ponder an endless stream of consciousness. She did a horrible thing —for the greater good—but whose greater good? —a selfish greater good —biased—Reece was right —Nora did nothing wrong—Ariel killed an innocent girl.

It was wrong, but nobody would admit it. Every day that daunting reality cackled at them; that the path to home was a river run red with blood and bones. She couldn't protect her allies and see her parents again in the same story. Sooner or later, she would have to face one or the other. She didn't want to die, but she didn't want to kill.

She couldn't abandon them, but she couldn't watch them die.

In the morning, they followed the main trail northbound until they once again stumbled upon the arena's jeweled crown. Its signature glisten was absent today, swallowed by a darkened and roaring sky. She watched the clouds funnel in the distance to form a twisted bridge reaching from the earth to the heavens. At the same time, three tributes appeared in front of them. Her eyes locked onto Love, and she knew she did not want to fight him. She recognized Julian, the career, but she didn't know much about the other girl.

Adding insult to injury, a shadow emerged from the waters. There was no time to think, she ducked out of the path of its monstrous claws, letting out a horrified scream as she did so. Monsters and tributes clashing all at once - "Stay with the others!" Areto said. For once, Ariel wished they could just run.

Time slowed, the sands in the hourglass reaching a halt. She did not hold the same instincts as the day before, where she rushed at Nora to help her friends instead of standing at the sidelines. Now, her legs were rooted to the soil. The wind whipped through her hair, drying the sides of her eyes, as she took in the world around her. The scaly monster, the tornado, the tributes hurting Blade, Love turning his back, uttering his words.

This was the part where Ariel was supposed to act.

She should, she could.

"I can't..."

She couldn't.

She didn't.

elegant

[ariel does not attack this round]

[ᕙʕ•ᴥ•ʔᕗ]

Anger and fury were fuel in her body, pushed into her engine with each pang of hunger. She was still wakening as her arms flailed about, the claws missing one of the small beings and the sound of a crack! as the vine whipped uselessly in the air. She was determined to make at least one of them her meal, but they seemed to have another agenda in mind.

Perhaps they thought she was not a threat to them—after all, in their eyes, she was merely making an appearance. Or maybe they were preoccupied with darker thoughts of killing the other of the same species. There was no difference to her, as she continued to thrash her head and whip her neck around as the funnels of air swept debris around.

Yes, it should be easy to kill one of them if they were so busy fighting amongst themselves. Any other time, it would have been more prudent for her to lay in wait, but she had been disturbed and therefore she could not rest. It had not been time to waken her, and the premature alarm only added more fuel to the fire.

(I am so sorry, but I have to go to work and won't be home for 12 hours minimum and would rather not hold up the fight just to finish this post; also my computer’s charger broke so my life is just a hot mess right now)




[The Thing attacks Julian (1M); claw (sword)]
7D6TnxwM7lsword
[Shallow Cut on Right Hip ; 3.5 dmg]


[The Thing attacks Avriel (9M) ; vine (whip)]
whip
[Deep Gash on Right Thigh ; 8.0 dmg]

sword·whip

[gamemaker sloane ♕ kaяi ♕]

waverly st. amor

Luck had never been on her side.

Not once in her life could she think of time where she had ever gotten lucky.

Every time luck seemed to be in her grasp, it would slip through her fingers and leave her in despair. Just when she thought they had gotten away with the disposal of their father, the Peacekeepers started dropping hints that they knew exactly what had happened. Just when she thought they were finally safe, they weren't. Just when she thought she would finally be welcomed by Death.

She wasn't.

Waverly St. Amor had never been lucky, not once in her life.

And she didn't expect it to change now.

She had barely regained her strength from their fight yesterday, the one that nearly took her life, and now she was expected to fight again. This time against four enemies who looked extremely well rested and a mutt who looked extremely hungry. Four enemies who wanted to see them all dead, but more specifically her. She was expected to care, expected to fight, but all she really wanted to do was lie down and sleep.

Her life had been full of expectation that she had never been able to meet.

But that never stopped her from trying.

The first knife that she released from her hand hit her target, the girl from Five, with a loud thud. Not exactly where she had intended for her weapon the land, but it seemed deep enough to cause at least some pain. There was no time to celebrate, the same girl's sword came crashing down towards her and the unhealed injuries from yesterday slowed her down. The weapon cut deep into her calf as she tried to dive out of the way. A cry of pain left her lips and she stumbled sideways as a trail of blood marked her path.

"Lose something, Eight?"

The boy's voice alerted her to the attack before he even through the weapon. Waverly did her best to move, but it still managed to clip her arm. She winced before grabbing her second knife from her belt.

"Actually, you're right. I misplaced that one. But don't worry, this time I won't miss."

Hopefully luck didn't make a fool of her once again.

( waverly attacks blade ; throwing knives )
s|Ch|jzsjPthrowing knife
( dg on stomach - 9.0 )

throwing knife

[napoleon, d2m ₊⊹ 🐁 ɢʀɪғғɪɴ.]

julian le roux

There is happiness
Past the blood and bruise
Past the curses and cries
Beyond the terror in the nightfall

“Better to be together and terrible than alone and dead,” Love said, the words bringing an unbidden smile across lips.

It was the truth, one he'd known for a long time but hid behind gold masks and polite facades, and yet the truth couldn't be kept hidden for long. The words ultimately spoke to Julian about how the Le Rouxes lived, together and terrible rather than alone and dead. They had been alive for decades, gold buried under the earth’s crust, and they will be alive for decades more. Why should he fight against his nature when lions are never tame, and desperate to live?

With a renewed gleam in his eyes, he faced his opponent. She was a mere girl, bird-boned at first glance, but if Waverly taught him anything, it was that little girls should never be underestimated, especially if they had a weapon in their hands and yearned to live. And this girl, fire in her eyes, steel in her bones, yearned.

And she moved quick. The graze he'd made on her calf hadn’t been enough – the girl pushed forward, a blur in the rain, her sword moving too swiftly for him to parry it until –

“Waverly,” he hissed under his breath, his hand already steadying her from behind. There were moments when Waverly reminded him of Sunny and this was one. They always fought well together, him and his sister. Two lions were better than one at tearing apart a foe, and two lions never yielded. They bore their fangs and went for the kill.

However, Avriel entered from his peripherals and his heart sputtered like a fire against a wind. This is his alliance. That meant Areto was here, too. The name of the girl in front of him cut through the haze of his thoughts like a blade. “Well, isn’t it nice to see you again, friends?” he called over the howling wind, miming a smile. “I wish it had happened at another bonfire, over foods and drinks, somewhere bright and sunny.” He was listing his own desires. He missed bright and sunny days, food and fizzy drinks—he missed district one, or home as he’d finally seen it, where his old haunts awaited his return like a friend.

But missing was for the old Julian. Fighting was for the present one. 

Fighting for all of it back, his golden days, his lazy afternoons, his brothers and his sisters, his father and his mother, and his childhood, his innocence, all of which have been viciously stolen from him by this godforsaken game. I’ll take it all back, he thought bitterly. And some more. Julian Le Roux, the lion prince, district one's gold statue—none of this mattered because now he was doing this for the boy he once was, for the man he could become. Kings died young but not in this story. 

He would not relish in it. He would not revel in it. But Julian wasn’t less of a monster as he readied his spear again; he was just a monster that had accepted its own nature. “Blade, isn’t it?” he asked before his chin dipped in a nod – a fleeting sorry, a somber acknowledgement.

“We're just doing what we have to.”

- Julian attacks Blade with Firepoker (Spear) -

5XEWWdt5ikspear

3078 -- Shallow Cut on Left Thigh -- 3.5 damage (Spear)

Haunted by the look in my eyes
That would've loved you for a lifetime
Leave it all behind
And there is happiness


Lyrics: Happiness, Taylor Swift

spear

[✨ zozo.]

🗡

"I care if you're in pain. So next time just fucking say something."

Underneath the shock you had felt a twitch. The foreign sound of Avriel's voice once kind and precise turned rough and piercing, laced with anger, pointed at you. Meant to make a point. Meant to make you say something. And you might have, was the gravity of Willa Copeland's death not forcing your jaw tightly shut - was the cost of living not weighing down on you so heavily that you thought your bones might shatter.

So you had said nothing at all. Because you didn't know that pain could be without feeling. That regret could be without guilt. That you could be sorry for killing a girl and not sorry for saving your friends. That going numb was your body's way of protecting you from the harm of the heart. That being silent was an innate response. That relying on survival instinct didn't make you a bad person.

That you were in pain, but you just didn't know it.

Guilt had cut open your chest as you slept, a bleeding target right where your heart is. You hadn't noticed it until a knife buried itself deep into your stomach and unleashed something awful, a gasp and hot tears and a swelling desire to hurt.

And it hurt, to want to hurt. It hurt to have done so before. And it hurt to take this weight, to realise that there was no turning back from a knife in your middle, realising that Avriel didn't bother to remove the blade this time because even he knew you were too far gone.

Together, you had promised each-other.

"Better to be together and terrible than alone and dead," the career boy had asked his ally mid-swing of a spear, effortless and practiced. "Right?"

A few days ago you might have agreed. Now, you're not so sure.

Together. The word that follows you everywhere.

But you hadn't promised to let him die at your expense. Even if you yourself were slowly slipping away with every passing second, this wasn't something you were going to allow to happen.

Together -- but not this. Not this.

You might die a bad person, but he won't. He won't die at all if you can help it. So you loook him in the eyes and gasp "This is me asking for help," each word sending ripples of pain through your diaphragm for the effort. One step, two, stumbling toward him in an act of assistance and knowing all the while you're shielding him from harm.

"Blade, isn’t it?" Le Roux -- you're a dead girl and you know it. Panic swells in your throat, but there's not enough energy left in your body to scream. "We're just doing what we have to."

Through gritted teeth you hiss,

"Likewise."

then your sword finds the side of her head and blood erupts in sync with your tears.

blade attacks waverly, sword
1oCAEUTZ|ssword
severed ear 8 + 1“sword”

[gamemaker kelsier]

a v r i e l .

"Whatever mess you're in
The demons you've been fighting
Know that your quest is only just beginning"

The winds howl, they tug at his shirt, rake through his hair and move on again, indiscriminate about who they touch. Avriel glances up at the sky, an uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach. He's never seen weather like this before, nine stays pretty temperate but for the odd storm here and there. There's nothing like this.

For a moment, everything is too overwhelming. Waverly and Julian's voices are almost drowned out by the howling wind and there's Love and Areto, attacking a monster that stands almost as tall as the house he was raised in. Avriel looks behind him for just a moment, seeking out Ariel but she seems frozen in fear. He can't blame her, not really, but if Blade dies here then he might.

She's bleeding again.

He focuses on Waverly again, watching for the knife to leave her hand so that he can push Blade out of the way, but the cracking sound of a whip comes first and a burning, hot-white feeling opens the wounds on Avriel's thigh in seconds. His eyes widen in surprise, he was so focused that he didn't realize how close the monster from the lake had gotten. A blooming of red spreads across the leg of his shorts and Avriel holds back a gasp of pain.

It doesn't hurt.

The lie is easy, even as the pain spreads through him like a wildfire, it's easier to hold on to the lie than to buckle here and just let Blade die beside him. He grimaces, braces himself by placing a hand on Blade's shoulder and pushes himself upwards again. He's always relying on her these days.

Waverly throws her knife and Avriel pushes himself forward on the wrong leg. "Fuck!" leaves his mouth in frustrated anger as the knife sinks itself neatly into Blade's stomach. Panic starts to settle in and it frays at his vision, little white lines brushing themselves across his sight, drawing wooden floorboards, blood-spatters drapes. It smells like cherry pie, always burning.

He squeezes his eyes shut briefly and pulls Blade into his chest even as she falls against him, a hand on the back of her head to keep her in place, as if he could holding her tightly was enough not to lose her. "This is me saying something," she murmurs against his neck and even though the winds howl, he still hears her. Even in darkness, a thousand miles apart, he'd hear her.

He can't protect anyone, even right there with her, he's too weak to help her. Blade isn't the first person, she won't be the last. His parents, his fault, maybe his siblings soon too and he won't even be there to help them. With blade it should be easy, like clockwork. All of his stupid little traps he'd been making, the late nights spent watching the woods in case a tribute showed up while they were asleep, useless.

It's all been useless if she's just going to die here.

"Stay back, with Ariel," he mutters into her ear and pushes her behind him, "I'm not ready to lose you."

And he has no plan, no course of action other than offering himself instead of Blade. Avriel doesn't know much about her other than her last name and district. He doesn't have her favourite colour, if she likes the fall over the summer or what she wants to be when she grows up. He doesn't even know why she's fighting, none of that even matters.

Julian is waxing pretty stories, wishes and regrets, something only someone with the confidence that they're going to win can say. Avriel gazes at him, eyes on that pretty face and wonders if he's ever gone hungry a day in his life before now. Does he know what it's like to sit at the kitchen table until three in the morning, trying to figure out just how he's going to pay the electricity bills?

Has he fought for life before this or has it always been pastoral poetry that spews from his lips?

"I was kinda hoping I'd never see you again," he tells the other boy, "You're kinda rough to look at, you know?"

Desperation laces his words as Avriel clumsily paints a target on himself, hoping the cruel words are enough to avert their attention to him. From what he understands about careers, they're egotistical dickheads.

"I think it's the chin."

He leaves the knife in Blade's stomach this time because he's not sure about what will happen if he tries to take that one out and throws one of his own at Waverly this time.

[avriel attacks waverly with throwing knife]
euNUPRH6C4throwing knife
Shallow Cut on Bicep -- 3.5 damage

throwing knife

[pogue]

love bellisario

He charges forwards, white knuckles wrapped tight around his spear as the creature turns its attention towards him. He's a being of diamond flesh that's run red over the days, desperately wielding warped steel in shaking hands shaking limbs. The creature swings at him, first with its claw and then with the vine it wields as a weapon and he narrowly misses both, feeling the soft pull of dangerous winds sweep over his head when he ducks.

There's thunderous heartbeats exploding in hollow chest when he drives his spear into the mutt's thigh.

Eighteen years of Career training should tell him what to expect when he drives the tip of a spear into foreign flesh, when a spurt of darkened blood splatters across his face, when the beast howls and roars in a thunderous screech. Eighteen years of hacked through training dummies and learning of the right to kill and he's still thrown for a loop when the creature does not stumble backwards from the wound like he expects, when it instead swings an arm at him and connects with his chest, sending him flying backwards. The metal of the weapon he wields is ripped from his fingertips with the impact and he's thrown backwards.

He hits the ground with a heavy thud and feels Death pull the air from heavy lungs, watches the world spin and collapse into itself as dark spots dance at the edge of his vision. Instincts pull him to his knees and then feet, stammering breaths finally slipping out from between his lips as the beast turns back towards him. He fumbles for the axe that is slung to his back as it begins to charge, eyes wide and breath caught in his throat.

Areto comes into the fight like a crashing wave, thunderous and dangerous and driving her spear into the mutt's stomach. The beast howls again as more blood spills from open wound and finally is knocked backwards from the both of them. "Apologize later." Areto warns with false malice and a thin layer of venom, hardly enough to cover up the defeat that still laces itself into the back of her throat. He knows, he feels the same way. "Shut up and help me kill this thing."

His gaze drifts quickly towards where Waverly and Julian stand feet away, just in time to watch Blade swipe her sword and bring forth red. Waverly's other ear hits the ground with an ocean of red spilling forth and for that brief moment all Love can hear is the sound of her screams as she stumbles backwards from the fight. "Waves.." He breathes out in shock and horror, eyes trained on the mutilation he's seeing as Avrial takes another swipe at her. 

There's no question in his mind, no desperate swings of hope, Waverly St. Amor is dying. Anger surges up from his gut in between heartbeats, focusing first on the way Julian simply waxes poetic, spitting out lines that don't fucking matter and doing nothing with a lion's pride and claws and fangs. It focuses next on their opponents, the way their blades shine red with Waverly's blood, and finally it focuses in on himself, his eyes catching the mutt as it turns towards Waverly's screams, attention pulled towards a dying girl.

There are dangerous muscles itching to be fired off in his system, eighteen years of trained killer instinct that he's done nothing but bite down since the second day in this arena. His teeth slam into each other as he pulls the weapon from his back, making his way back towards the mutt and Areto. 

He's forced back poison and venom with hollow heart and dying soul and everything in between for far too long, resigned himself to a desperate hope that he could be anything but what he's destined for. When he finally falls into the darkness he's been running from all he can feel is bloodlust, blue eyes piercing into the mutt in front of him.

"Fine." He finally breathes out, gaze lingering on Waverly and Julian for what feels like an eternity longer than his own body, form twisting to meet the snarling creature that stumbles and screeches in front of them. Slobber and blood whip in sickly tendrils from its mouth as it clamors backwards on shaken limbs, his spear still embedded into its thigh and pulling waves of blue blood up to the surface. It cascades and spills across scaly flesh, splattering across Love's face as the creature turns quick towards Areto, her spear lodged deep into its stomach and a beastly howl escaping from the monster's lips.

"I'll be kind.." He says softly to Areto, a breath and a warning, "... and I'll tell you to duck, instead of driving my knee into your groin like some people here would do." 

The smirk on his lips betrays the ice cold stare in his eyes as he trains his gaze onto the mutt, betrays the foreign feeling of the word kindness that sits bitter on his tongue. He pounces forwards as Areto narrowly dodges a slash from the creature's claws, jumping onto the pile of rocks that sit to Areto's right and eyeing the creature down.

He doesn't wait to check if Areto has ducked before he twists on his heel and uses the momentum to swing the axe towards the mutt's neck. He can't check, can't muster any more kindness into his body. After all, kindness kills in a place like this.

[ Love attacks the Thing ; axe ]

dkXvn2_kp_axe

[ Deep gash on cheek -- 8.5, +1 strength ]

axe

[tick 12a / calla]

A R E T O

► ► ►

Areto's spear slips into the mutt's stomach just as Love goes flying by. His body drags a trough through the sand and she tries not to think of Galactea's River.

She follows his gaze when he stumbles, flitting between the monster and their allies. It's a mass of chaos away from the water, and Areto can see Blade suffering in the distance. But Avriel is there, and Ariel is there, they have the numbers and the mutt roars again so Areto is whipping back to it before the sound can leave the air.

She focuses on ripping her spear back, dragging up and out until the blood of the mutt spills across her feet like oil. It drips down the metal and stops at the tassel, staining the cardinal into a crow. It dances heavily as she moves the spear and adjusts her feet as the monster rears back and sends waves up to her waist.

It almost makes her stumble, and she twists back to where Love is still daydreaming.

"Hurry up." She hisses at him, "If it makes it out of the water, then we'll all be in trouble."

"I'll be kind.." Love says back, and Areto steps back and raises her fist so quickly that she nearly gets dizzy from it.

He smirks and her blood curdles and the mutt takes a giant lumbering step towards shore.

"... and I'll tell you to duck, instead of driving my knee into your groin like some people here would do."

"How considerate of you." She grunts out, heaving her spear again, but she hasn't even finished saying it before Love is darting forward and Areto moves out of instinct.

She hears the crack before she sees it. Her exhaustion makes her sluggish and Love's axe cuts close to her head and moves the air beside her, makes her hair drift across her face. Her stomach wound twinges at the movement and she flounders for a moment.

"Watch where you're swinging that thing." She bites out, flinching when her back is exposed,

this isn't done yet but it's late and i have to be up early rip

areto attacks the thing ; spear
IVsOT9qj0vspear
Shallow Cut on Left Bicep -- 3.5 damage

spear